Joseph W. bourke
Forum Replies Created
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Also check your Vertices Count in MIR – it defaults to 100, which is way too low to get sharp edges and detail in the result. Try 200 or 300 and see what happens.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Have you set the Complexity of the Fractal Noise pattern to 100 percent (it’s either that or 1.00 – I can’t remember from the tutorial). You need to have pretty high contrast (blacks and whites, not greys and off-whites) to get the solid bars effect. I think your problem is in the setup of the Fractal Noise.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Having watched the tutorial, I think that what you’re missing is the Fractal Noise and Grid components of the tutorial, and getting those right. It’s pretty clear what the settings need to be from the tutorial – maybe you should go through it a few times.
It sounds as if you want to make a more complex version of a 3D VU meter. The tutorial looked pretty clear to me – spend your time on getting the noise and grid down, and you’ll have it almost there.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Are you using the Roto Brush or hand masking the project? What version of AE are you using? If you haven’t learned the Roto Brush properly, and that’s what you’re using, you need to step back and get the process under your belt – it’s in no way intuitive:
https://www.video2brain.com/en/lessons/roto-brush-basics
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Jim –
I’ve used Pond5 for footage, music, and a template here and there, when budgets don’t allow for custom graphics. They have a great selection of music, although not categorized as well as some other music sites. But the quality is great, and the array of choices is astonishing.
Another thought, if you can squeeze a slightly larger budget for music, is to use software like Sony ACID. If you’re creative musically, you can purchase a library of loops in any style, and customize your own for the project. There are also immense quantities of free loops, riffs, sound effects, and other audio pieces on the web, to use as you see fit. It allows you to get away from the “library” music, and give the client something no one else will have.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Hi Jim –
What I’ve been doing for the approval copy to the client, is outputting a full-size version of the project in .mp4 (1920 x 1080 usually) at a very low variable bitrate, 4 – 6 mbps. This comes in small enough in size to put in my Dropbox, and the client gets it in no time. Doesn’t look great, but it’s adequate for content and timing, and I warn the client that it will look much better in the final version.
For delivery, and I’m going to reference a specific project here, I provide a 1920 x 1080 mp4 at 8 – 12 mbps, a 1280 x 720 mp4 at 5 – 8 mbps, and a 960 x 540 mp4 at about 5 – 8 mbps. On testing, I found – and be aware that my laptop is a Lenovo W510 workstation with 16GB of RAM – that the 1920 x 1080 played back just fine (it was about 120MB file, and of course, so did the other two, the 1280 x 720 and the 960 x 540 (at about 60mb and 30mb, respectively), as would be expected.
I also have the 960 x 540 on my Blackberry Playbook (2GB RAM), and it plays back and looks beautiful. Results on any given laptop would vary, due to processor speed and amount of RAM. My feeling is that the .mp4 is the new delivery standard. That said, I output the insurance master of the project at 1920 x 1080, Quicktime Animation codec uncompressed, and it came in at 25GB! But this was a four minute runtime. I’m looking at the possibility of outputting my insurance masters in DNxHD, but I always try to deliver something the client can view, if they have the ability to do so, without installing codecs.
If you look in Adobe Media Encoder CS6, I’m just using variations on the different YouTube codecs, but using Variable Bit Rate. They give a good starting point, then I save them as custom presets.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Yes, Jim, as far as being a Swiss Army Knife of playback, VLC certainly is robust. My only complaint is that when starting it up for dog and pony shows at a clients’ office, a dos runtime window shows up before the player shows up, and looks a bit clunky. That’s the only reason I opt to use Windows Media Player. WMP also is really quick at setting up and changing the order of the playlist, and mp4s look just as good as on VLC. But in the office, it’s VLC all the way…
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Try going to the PSD in your Project tab of AE, selecting the PSD file, right-clicking, and choosing Reload. That should do it. If not, try closing, then reopening the project.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Hi Walter – While I’ve used the Win-Tab sporadically (if by that you mean the Windows icon key-Tab), but I find it to be visually confusing, especially when I have a lot of programs and Explorer screens open. As long as I’ve got something available in Win 8 (if indeed I go with it), I’m ok.
Update: I just started doing homework on 3DS Max 2011, and from all appearances, it’s not supported, and doesn’t run in Win 8, so my choice may have been determined for me.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Thanks for your in-depth answer, Alex. It’s more the nuts and bolts of it working with the CS6 tools than getting used to a new GUI – although, that said, I make extensive use of the CTRL-Tab and ALT-Tab switching between Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects. There must be some quick navigation tool there which doesn’t require a mouse – I’ll have to do some homework on it.
My main worry was about the core software of CS6, as well as 3DS Max 2011, and a few other key software tools. I may just stick with Win 7, after all.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com